Design Principles

Furrow Studio is dedicated to creating high quality landscapes for clients who share our passion for design excellence, site specificity and environmental sensitivity. Our work aspires to express conceptual clarity, strong spatial, programmatic and contextual relationships, and thoughtful materiality.  We integrate a design aesthetic that values distilled, articulate composition and attention to detail, with an understanding and respect for local cultural and ecological processes to generate inspiring landscapes for our clients. We are the happiest when our work results in landscapes that are practical yet poetic in character.

While we embrace working in a variety of habitats and climates, we have developed a particular enthusiasm for crafting arid landscapes in the American West. Sustainable water management applications are at the core the studio’s approach. We also understand the importance of teamwork. Engaging the design process as a dynamic collaboration between clients, users, architects, artists, engineering consultants, and craftsmen allows us to generate innovative designs that emerge in response to unique site opportunities as well as custom programmatic requirements.

Whether rural or urban, publicly accessible or private, each work informs every future endeavor in the evolving balancing act of responsibly shaping our environment.  While this is of the utmost importance to us we never lose sight of the need to forge meaningful and lasting landscapes for people.

Studio Origins

Nikos and Ron met while working at Lutsko Associates in San Francisco, but their life paths ran parallel long before this.  Both have inherent interests in ecology, cultural and productive landscapes, native plants, architecture, and design.  While spending time designing, visiting sites, conducting presentations, and venturing out on botanizing trips, they forged a friendship based in their common interests.  When Nikos decided to leave the Bay in favor of Austin, their friendship and Ron’s fascination with the landscape of Texas, kept them in touch. 

Two years later they decided to meet for another plant trip, this time in Greece to explore the plant communities of Crete. Nikos had spearheaded the idea of developing a design practice in Austin and while in Crete they decided to join forces in this new venture.  Ron, with roots in Texas, Hawaii and California, and Nikos with roots in Greece, bring a unique perspective and rich understanding to the realm of landscape.  To that end Furrow Studio was developed to focus on creating landscapes in the Austin area and beyond.